We’re pleased to announce the second programme in the training series we’re running in partnership with the Management Centre (=mc). Delivered by Bernard Ross (Director of =mc) this one-day intensive session will help you to develop the ability to make a powerful and memorable impact in small and large groups.

One of The Management Centre’s most popular programmes, Developing Personal Presence builds on the skills individuals already have, to develop a more sophisticated approach to impactful communications – from informal meetings to full-blown presentations.

The course will help you:

• think on your feet and convey complex ideas quickly and effectively in impromptu or formal situations
• convey an impression of authority, confidence and sincerity, especially when under pressure – or even under attack
• convince or impress stakeholders
• sell ideas to colleagues or those in more senior positions
• communicate more effectively with important stakeholders

On the day you’ll cover…

The secrets of confidence and charisma: acquire the five key techniques to help you acquire ‘charisma’ and personal power – on demand

Developing a personal brand: understand how to create and assess yourself as a brand and position yourself appropriately

Communicating under pressure: discover how to organise and transmit your thoughts quickly and effectively

Presence principles: find out how experienced communicators convey presence through a mixture of eye contact, body language and voice

Structuring your ideas: learn how and when to use the seven ‘core’ structures to shape and present your ideas

Communicating to large audiences: acquire a new skill-set and approach for large audiences

Think-Feel-Do: discover how to structure your message so that it has the greatest impact

Changing minds: motivate people to change their view by understanding and using ‘hygiene’ factors and ‘motivators’

Be memorable: understand how people process information and make decisions – then make yourself and your ideas memorable

Learning Approaches

The programme uses extensive interactive approaches and activities. Be prepared to take part!

Who’s it for?

Developing Personal Presence will be of value to anyone in the nonprofit sector who wants to:

• improve their ability to confidently and effectively present ideas
• develop their negotiation skills and become more persuasive
• communicate more effectively in small or large groups

Event Details

Date:          Thurs 2nd September

Time:         9.15am – 5.15pm

Venue:       Morrison Hotel, Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1

The are two courses remaining in our current training series:

2 September - Developing Personal Presence

30 September - Strategic Planning Tools for Fundraisers

The cost of each training programme, including full documentation, lunch and refreshments, is €285. There are discounts available for booking more than one course.

To book your place, please email us, or phone us on 01 524 2440.

By chance last night I discovered that yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Live Aid (explanatory link included for any readers under the age of 30).

25 years. A quarter of a century. Wow.

There was an interesting documentary on BBC4, Live Aid: Against All Odds about the genesis of the concert. Viewable here if you live in the UK.

I still remember the whole day clearly, sat on the sofa in the front room, having commandeered the telly from indifferent parents and a half interested sister. It was a momentous event for the music business, for the acts involved, for the world of media (they used eight satellites for the broadcast; the previous year’s Olympics had used just two), for the milllions upon millions of people watching, and for the charity world as well.

Watching the programme last night was interesting - not just for the nostalgia - as I think it contained several important lessons for fundraisers today.

Now back in 1985 I wasn’t a fundraiser, just a pimply U2 fan with a bad haircut and a questionable taste in clothes, so I have no first hand knowledge of the sector as it was then, and the impact Live Aid had on the charity world. To get a flavour of the time, I asked Ken Burnett for his recollections. And he responded with such grace and eloquence that I felt I should quote him at length. Here’s some of what he remembers…

Seems like the day before yesterday, to be honest. In 1984 I was still fairly fresh out of ActionAid, where I had done a lot on disaster advertising and considered myself a bit of a quick mover, able to get the right ads and sizes into the right media at the right price at the first sign of trouble, or really soon after. I was working with several major charity clients and with Smith Bundy and Partners, George Smith’s agency, while I set about building my own agency, Burnett Associates. We were still based in the front room of my house in Finsbury Park when the Band Aid story broke. As I recall it, Band Aid came first, Live Aid was later. The exact chronology of the Christmas hits eludes me, but then I never really liked them.

What I remember most from back then was the excruciatingly graphic TV reports from Michael Buerk filmed by Mohammed Amin, which sparked Band Aid. The long lines of gaunt and starving faces, Michael Buerk’s measured, reasoned tones as he walked through the chaos, the pathetic mothers and their bewildered babies, dying as we watched. The thing was that back then disasters were always supposed to appear on our TV screens over a few days, then to be quickly supplanted by other, more immediate news once the initial sympathy had faded. But Ethiopia was a different order of magnitude and it persisted, night after night after night. There was a palpable feeling in the air that something must be done, and Bob Geldof just grabbed it. At the time every line of accepted thinking was against such an event, but he just said, ‘Why the fuck not?’

I loved that attitude. It inspired everything we did. It still does.

That passion and determination was tangible in the documentary. Geldof was a washed-up, big-mouthed rock star who just decided to do something, whatever he could, to respond to the horror unfolding before him in Ethiopia. And we should remember that impluse, that passion, because surely it gives us an insight into the motivation to give.

And if you think that it’s a bit of a stretch to compare a humble €50 gift in a pre-paid envelope to the organisation of an era-defining international event, well, it shouldn’t be. And perhaps that’s the problem with too much of our fundraising today. It’s mechanised, formulaic, routine. It shouldn’t be. It should be passionate, urgent and thrilling.

The other thing about Geldof was, as Ken says, his ‘Why the fuck not’ attitude. That’s something worth remembering the next time somebody tells you ‘it can’t be done’. And that attitude of thinking big, of trying to do something that every sane person thought was impossible, because it had to be done, because the need was so great. That’s something we need to hold onto. You may not be dealing with with the scale of death and devastation that Michael Buerk showed us back in 1984, but I’m sure what you are dealing with is important, and may indeed be a matter of life or death.

Are you happy to just tip along, meet your targets and have a quiet life, or do you want to change the world? If it’s the latter, then you’re going to need that ‘why the fuck not’ attitude.

Geldof probably took it to the extreme. When he announced the lineup, he still didn’t have most acts confirmed, but he went ahead anyway and told the world that they’d be playing. Bryan Ferry phoned him up and said ‘I never said I’d play’ to which Geldof retorted ‘well, pull out then’. He didn’t.

Here’s some more from Ken…

Burnett Associates didn’t have its own design studio at the time and I was working with a freelance group called Bradbury & Williams who, apart from designing brochures, posters, ads and direct mail packs for me and my charities also designed and produced coffee table books, including the two Live Aid books and Bob Geldof’s autobiography, Is that it? So we felt quite close to the events – I never met Geldof at the studio but once sat in a chair he’d recently vacated. It was still warm. I treasure the sensation.

At this time I was heavily involved with the NSPCC, one of our major clients on many fronts. It was their Centenary year, of course. To be honest I wasn’t working directly at that time with anyone working in Ethiopia. One event from 1984 was the Bhopal disaster, which is reported on SOFII.

Bhopal was significant because we had to decide to run our emergency ads alongside all the competing noise from Band Aid. This was when I learned that one disaster could actually help to promote another.

Good advice. And still very much true.

Then, I did some round–up work with Oxfam, writing letters that reported to their donors on what their gifts for Ethiopia had achieved. I loved that brief. At the time I was heavily into monthly giving as a concept, though it was not widely understood in the UK then, except by the likes of ActionAid. I was sure that charities should be switching their donors to monthly giving, and how better to make the case than in the aftermath of a disaster? ‘We’ve mopped up’, we could say, ‘now help us rebuild’.

But not everyone was receptive to this message.

In 1985 George Smith and I jointly wrote a five-page feature for Direct Response magazine on the aftermath of the Ethiopian emergency, as development people liked to call it. In this polemic piece we were savagely critical of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) and its member charities, who we had discovered were dumping donors addresses by the thousands because they couldn’t agree which member charity should ‘own’ them. So donors were not only not being properly thanked, they were being denied any reporting back and follow-up. The argument was completely lost on the powers that be at DEC, who couldn’t understand why you might want to thank or follow up a donor. ‘Waste of money, surely.’ They are, of course, little more than a big and expensive bucket for collecting cash. Little did I realise then that I would be castigating them for pretty much the same set of sins, 20 years later, in The Guardian

25 years ago, enlightened people like Ken and George were urging charities to provide real donor feedback - and charities like Oxfam were doing it. Clearly, lots of people didn’t get it then, and sadly lots of people still don’t seem to get it. Or they get it, but couldn’t be bothered to do it. Which, to be honest, is far, far worse.

Live Aid seems to have had it’s origins in the notion of donor feedback. After Band Aid, Geldof felt he’s done his bit. He was rejected proposals from the media to go the Ethiopia, but eventually relented when one of his trustees argued that he needed to go to demonstrate to donors that the aid was getting through, that their gifts would make a difference. Reluctantly, Bob went. The trip changed everything.

Geldof put Live Aid together in the space of 12 weeks. That’s often what we’ll spend producing a campaign for a client. Hmmm. He did it in the face of disbelief, disinterest and antagonism. It could have been a shambles. Luckily, and thankfully, it wasn’t.

Rather like marching against Blair and Bush’s war, the power of the masses wasn’t perhaps as enduring as it seemed it would be, at the time. But it wasn’t half thrilling. In truth though I was so wrapped up in building a struggling new agency that I didn’t do as much as I could have done for Ethiopia, nor for the fight against Apartheid. I regret both of these, now.

As a result of this preoccupation I don’t think I can comment too much on what the sector thought of Bob & Co at the time. I recall a lot of noses were turned up at the scruffy oiks who used all that bad language. But this soon gave way to respect and amazement at what these amateurs actually achieved.

For me I think this was the time when I conceived an unswerving belief in the power of the donor and the paramount need for good feedback, prompt acknowledgement and the rigorous offering of electronic banking facilities. Those were also new, back then.

Ah, those were the days! Maybe we should preserve our history…

It’s interesting to consider the role of ‘amateurs’ in situations like this. Impassioned amateurs like Geldof bring a drive, a freshness, and an attitude that’s often missing from established actors. Could Oxfam have produced Live Aid? Not a chance. Could Geldof have done what he did by working through Oxfam? Probably not.

Right through to today you see independent, entrepreneurial philanthropists and activists doing their own thing. But there are clearly times when this approach merely duplicates the effort of others. And other times when despite an initial fanfare, the new, entrepreneur-driven organisation isn’t capable of delivering and managing a sustainable programme of work. The challenge for established NGOs and charities is to find a way of cultivating that risk taking, entrepreneurial spirit within their ranks.

As I write, I’m watching the second part of the documentary, about the day itself, and Geldof is telling us ‘Don’t go to the pub tonight, give us your money. There are people DYING NOW.’ [stamps table]

He was enraged at what he saw as the old-school, cosy, charity feel of the day. He didn’t see it as charity, he saw it as ‘finely tuned politics’. And he believed the amount raised at that point was pathetic, and not enough calls to action were being broadcast. So he marched into the BBC, tore strips off them, and made his now infamous appeal to the world.

Watching I’m reminded of all the conversations I’ve had where apparently sensible people who work in charities argue that not asking for money is the best way to raise money. How we’re asking too often, too strongly, for too much, or too specifically. Well, as Bob Geldof will tell you, that just doesn’t work. If you want money, you have to say ‘Give us your money. There are people dying now.’ And you should really try to muster up even an ounce of Geldof’s rage and passion when you’re saying it.

Now for some music.

The Management Centre is the UK’s leading training and consultancy organisation working to transform the results of values driven organisations worldwide.

Bernard Ross, Director of =mc will kick off the series on 15 July with The Influential Fundraiser. This intensive, one day programme is based on the best selling book of the same name by Bernard and fellow =mc director, Clare Segal. The day draws on the latest thinking in psychology and neurology to analyse interpersonal situations and how to handle them effectively. You develop skills and confidence in your own ability to handle donors effectively and manage their expectations.

The course will help you:
– Learn how to quickly build rapport with anyone – no matter how different or difficult
– Gain access to a toolbox of techniques to analyse situations and handle them effectively
– Develop skills and confidence in your own ability to handle donors effectively and manage their expectations
– Build up an effective case and adapt it to a range of different donors

On the day you’ll cover…
– How to interpret a donor’s psychology and convince reluctant donors
– Making your case powerful
– Building instant and effective rapport
– Handling difficult fundraising situations and objections
– Framing and reframing your case effectively
– Interpersonal skills and rapport building with donors
– Projecting confidence and authority
– Dealing with sponsorship negotiations and pricing

Who’s it for:
The Influential Fundraiser will be of value to everyone involved in fundraising, and is especially useful for CEOs, Fundraising Directors / Heads of Fundraising and anyone who engages in direct donor contact, such as major donor or corporate fundraisers.

The full programme of training is as follows:

15 July - The Influential Fundraiser
2 September - Developing Personal Presence
30 September - Strategic Planning Tools for Fundraisiers

The cost of each training programme, including full documentation, lunch and refreshments, is €285. To book a place, please email us, or phone us on 01 5242440.

We’re launching our 2010 training programme with a half day seminar on In Memoriam Giving. The seminar ‘An Introduction to In Memoriam and Tribute Giving’ will be led by Kevin Kibble, one of the UK’s foremost experts on Tribute and In Memoriam fundraising. It will take place on Thursday 27^th May in the Morrison Hotel, Dublin.

In memoriam fundraising is one of the most underdeveloped areas of charity fundraising, yet when implemented successfully it delivers both significant income for the charity and a valuable focus for grieving donors. Many can find its effectiveness and donor-centric methodology difficult to grasp.

This valuable fundraising tool is often mistakenly seen as being too intrusive – yet donors tell us the opposite and can in fact become your most passionate supporters.

This seminar will look at:

– the changes in society that are making in memoriam fundraising so successful

– how in memoriam fundraising works and how it differs from legacies

– what tribute fundraising is all about

– how to talk to bereaved donors

– ‘top tips’ on introducing in memoriam to your fundraising mix

About Kevin Kibble

Kevin Kibble is development director at The Supporter Development Team, a fundraising consultancy specialising in donor and supporter relationships. With over 30 years’ experience in communications and marketing, 13 of which have been in fundraising, Kevin is passionate about raising money from individuals. With special strategic interests in donor motivations, online and new media, tribute, in memoriam and legacies, Kevin is a regular presenter at conferences where individual giving is an important element. Kevin is an executive coach and mentor with team and individual performance his major interests, and also has the misfortune of being a long-standing member of Saracens Rugby Football Club.

Date: 27^th May

Time: 9.30 to 12.30

Cost: €75

Venue: Morrison Hotel, Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1

To book now email your name, organisation and address to learning@askdirect.ie. Places are limited and we expect them to sell fast so book early to avoid disappointment. 

– Subject line: We love our users!

– Sent from an actual person, but still identifying the organisation: ‘Katin from Springpad’

- First, BIG, headline: “You’re making Springpad better”

This is about me, not about Springpad. This is pretty brilliant. And it’s the first e-newsletter I’ve actually bothered to read in ages. You can read the full newsletter here.

Lots of strategic planning is, frankly, dull, worthy and uninspiring. But it shouldn’t be. When you’re dealing with big picture stuff about how to change the world (and how to raise the money to do it), when you have a group of bright, dedicated and motivated people, and when you have the right planning tools, it can be brilliant.

On the consultancy* side of Ask Direct, we’re doing a lot more strategic planning work. Which is great, because when you have a clear, coherent strategy it makes all of the other stuff around fundraising so much easier.

*(We have three sides to our work here - the ‘agency’ work, where we work on direct marketing, direct response, branding and other communications campaigns and programmes. Consultancy which can involve strategic planning, problem solving, change management and mentoring, and Training of which more later - watch this space!)

Now I wasn’t quite so fanatical that I promptly went into mourning, cried for a week and wore nothing but black clothes (actually, I did wear nothing but black clothes, but that was because that was the coolest thing you could do. Nothing to do with The Smiths splitting) but they have remained a favourite of mine ever since.

And listening to them again recently, it struck me how much the great Stephen Patrick Morrissey can teach us about fundraising and direct marketing. So, very conscious that I’ve probably already violated rule #1, here goes…

1. Always have a killer opening

Punctured bicycle, on a hillside desolate.
Will nature make a man of me yet?

Is there a better opening line to a song? So evocative. So intriguing. And then you have Johnny Marr’s guitar into. The whole things starts with one big surge of excitement, which drags you into Morrissey’s world of broken hearts and unrequited love.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to claim any of our direct mail opening lines measure up to this standard. But that’s what we’re we’re constantly striving for. Here’s one that does actually come close, which I first came across in George Smith’s brilliant book, Asking Properly. It’s from the United Farm Workers union in the US:

I buried my husband this afternoon.
Yesterday, thousands of us walked in funeral procession through Delano, the same little town where so many years agomit was only Cesar, only Cesar and a faithful few walking door to door with a dream.

You’ll have to get the book if you want to read the rest of it. But I think you’ll agree that’s one arresting opening.

Here’s a couple of my favourite opening lines from our portfolio of work…

Barnardos:

You’re now holding a letter I hoped I’d never have to write.
I say this because Barnardos has never faced such a serious crisis as the one it faces today.

The Irish Hospice Foundation:

If you were out for a drive and you saw a clutch of pink balloons tied to a gatepost, you’d probably think they were for a child’s birthday party.
You’d never imagine they might be for the funeral of a little girl.

2. Inspire a fanatical devotion amongst your supporters

Concerts by The Smiths and, later, Morrissey, were renowned for the stage invasions by near-obsessed fans. And, of course, the band were well known for the legion of pale and interesting fans who followed their every word and move.

The Plundering Desire fansite epitomises this:

A dedicated teenage Smiths fan, I religiously cut out and kept every article and interview, review and news item from the various pop magazines and rock papers I bought and devoured on a regular basis.

These are fans who dressed like Morrissey, danced like Morrissey and presumably would have jumped in front of a double decker bus if he’d asked them to. Which is a nice segue into another song…

Now wouldn’t it be nice if your supporters were prepared to jump under a double decker bus for your cause? If they had the passion and devotion to go forth and tell everyone how great you are? To convince their friends, family and colleagues to support you?

Sadly, I think too many nonprofits are instead a little bit afraid of their supporters. Afraid they won’t like the next mailing. Afraid we’re asking them too often and for too much. Afraid they’re going to ‘lapse’ or ‘attrite’.

I think most supporters of non-profits really care about the causes they support. And I think that if we acknowledge that, and treat them with respect, they’ll respond with loyalty, passion and generosity.

3. Tell a good tale

All men have secrets and here is mine
So let it be known
For we have been through hell and high tide
I think I can rely on you …
And yet you start to recoil
Heavy words are so lightly thrown
But still I’d leap in front of a flying bullet for you

OK, what the hell is that all about? What secret? I get that there’s a lover involved. Or maybe an ex-lover? Times appear to have been rough - was there a fight? He still seems besotted though…

What Difference Does it Make is hardly an example of a traditional, linear narrative structure. The opening verse poses far more questions than it answers. And by the second verse, it’s beginning to take on the look of a crime thriller…

The devil will find work for idle hands to do
I stole and I lied, and why ?
Because you asked me to !
But now you make me feel so ashamed
Because I’ve only got two hands
Well, I’m still fond of you, oh-ho-oh

What did his one-time lover ask him to do? And why did it all go wrong? Maybe the next verse will tell me. Or maybe I’ll have to go back and listen to it all again…

There’s a reason that crime novels, thrillers and Dan Brown books are so successful. We love mysteries. In fact we love trying to work things out for ourselves. Page-turners are so-called because we keep reading to find out what happens. If we know whodunnit at the start, we’re unlikely to keep reading to the end.

It’s a lesson worth applying to fundraising letters. Once you’ve got someone to start reading, you want them to keep reading. Can you keep your reader guessing through a four page letter? Can you tease them through the opening lines of a case study. Can you keep them wondering how that case study is going to end? Too often the stories and case studies that are used in fundraising are dull and predictable. We know from the first line how it’s all going to turn out. We can spot the happily-ever-afters a mile away. And all too often these lifeless stories are told without style, without tension, and without drama.

Frankly, that’s not good enough. Our work brings us in to contact with some amazing stories. We owe it to our supporters to tell these stories with all our skill and passion.

4. Embrace emotion
I think one of the reasons The Smiths were so popular with socially inept teenage boys was that they provided an outlet for the expression of emotions that socially inept teenage boys aren’t good at expressing. And yes, I did think, for a brief period in 1985, that ‘How Soon is Now’ was written about my life.

But the emotion that drips off Morrissey’s songs is also the reason for their wide and lasting appeal. Because emotions are universal. And emotional appeals - whether is verse, or in 4 pages of fundraising prose are what move us to empathy and action.

It’s not enough to make a rational argument for action. You need to win the heart over. And you need to do that FIRST.

The Heath Brothers, authors of the wonderful Made to Stick, have a new book out called Switch - How to change things when change is hard. You should read it. They use the analogy of an elephant and it’s rider to describe our emotional and rational sides. The rider is rationality, the elephant emotion. As they say:

Perched atop the Elephant, the Rider holds the reins and seems to be the leader. But the Rider’s control is precarious because the Rider is so small relative to the Elephant. Anytime the six-tom Elephant and the Rider disagree about which direction to go, the Rider is going to lose. He’s completely overmatched.

They argue that is you want to change things (which is essentially the same process as getting someone to take an action) you need to do three things - Direct the Rider (the rational argument), Motivate the Elephant (the emotional driver) and Shape the Path (the environment - in fundraising, this could be making it as easy to respond to an appeal as possible).

Sadly, some non-profits still fall back onto rational and logical arguments, and forget to appeal to people’s heart. But if you don’t Motivate your Elephant, you’re doomed to failure.

5. Focus on your fans and forget the rest.
Back in Tallaght in the 1980s, lots of people absolutely HATED The Smiths. I’d often be told by some snow-washed denim wearing Wet Wet Wet fanatic that Morrissey was ‘miserable’ or ‘depressing’. This song may have had something to do with that.

The sad fact is, just as some people didn’t appreciate the genius that was The Smiths, there are people who don’t appreciate the importance and urgency of your cause. Indeed, depending on your work, some people may actively oppose what you do.

These people are never going to support you. So stop worrying about them.

Stop worrying about what they might think, how they might react or what they might say. Instead devote all your energy to worrying about how you can make your fans even more fanatical, and - to stretch the metaphor to breaking point - how you can persuade the ones who’ll sing along when the song comes on the radio to go out and buy your album.

6. Ask!

If there’s something you’d like to try
Ask me, I won’t say no, how could I?

OK, I know it wasn’t written about fundraising. But it still works as a rallying cry. Go on, Ask!

Despite the economic crisis, response rates and average gifts for donor direct mail campaigns are both increasing.

The analysis is based on data from direct mail campaigns carried out by Ask Direct’s clients in 2008 and 2009. All client campaigns (12 from each year) for which directly comparable 2008 and 2009 data existed were included in the analysis.

Three quarters of the campaigns showed an increase in response rate, with the average response rate increasing from 13.4% in 2008 to 15.7% in 2009.

A similar number also showed an increase in average gift. The increase in average gift was small, going from €96.02 to €98.08.

As I said earlier, there are only a limited number of things you can really test in direct marketing, but some tend to have a greater bearing on results than others. So, changing the audience, format or proposition will typically produce much bigger differences in results than playing with headlines, body copy and images.

And in this case, the change in format is key. Whenever we’ve tested it, enveloped door drops tend to produce twice the response of all-in-one leaflets. The same seems to be true of all unaddressed media - we’ve found the same with newspaper inserts for instance.

Why? Well, I suppose putting it in an envelope makes it look more like ‘real’ post, and sets it apart from pizza menus and estate agents’ flyers. Perhaps it also looks less ‘marketingy’ and more authentic when you put it in an envelope. And finally, donors are probably more trusting of a proper reply envelope to stick their cheque in, than a flimsy ‘tear here’ do-it-yourself envelope.

So congrats to John Lepp on getting it spot on. And keep an eye on twitter next Friday to see who’s hosting the next quiz

We put a lot of emphasis on testing. One of the great benefits of direct marketing as a technique is that it’s both controllable and quantifiable - you can design and control a random test in a donor mailing or acquisition campaign and get measurable results back. It means that you can constantly refine and improve the quality of the work.

There’s really only a handful of things you can test in direct marketing:
- the audience (who you send it to)
- the proposition (what your offer is - how much you ask for, and for what)
- the format (shape, size and contents of the package)
- the creative (the copy and design)
- the timing (when you send it)

Right, that’s the background. Now here’s two unaddressed door drops I’ve received over the last year or so from The Children’s Medical and Research Foundation, the fundraising arm of Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin.

First of all, there’s this one:

(For the non-paddies reading, Gay Byrne is kinda like a combination of Terry Wogan and Michael Parkinson, only bigger and more famous)

That’s the cover - it’s an A5 leaflet. And here’s the rest of it… (it folds out to a 6 page A5, with a perforated envelope at the end)

And here’s the second one:

It’s a C5 window envelope, with ‘Dear Householder’ showing through the window…

And inside there’s a 2 page letter, an A4 donation form, an A5 leaflet and a reply envelope…

So the question is, which of these two door drops do you think produced the best response and why? And for a bonus point, how much of a difference in response would you expect between the two packs?

(Just to point out, CMRF aren’t one of Ask Direct’s clients, so I’ll be basing my answer on the results of comparable tests from campaigns we have worked on, rather than actual results).

Post your answer as a comment or tweet it @damianobroin.

Answers after 4pm today…

awarded to individuals who would benefit from attending but who would struggle to pay the registration feeI.

If you’d like to apply for one, you can get more info here.

For those of you who know me (or just like beer) there will of course be an opportunity to commiserate with me over pints of beer, at some yet to be decided venue in or around the date itself. But first, something important.

Rather than having a mid-life crisis (I’ll save that ’til next year) I want to mark it in a significant way. So I decided I’m going to - with your help - raise €4,000 for Friends of the Earth. This is why:

(…this is, as Jennifer Aniston would say, the science bit. You know it already. Feel free to skip…)

Climate change is the most important and urgent issue facing us all today. If strong and fair action isn’t taken soon, global temperatures will increase beyond ’safe’ levels and the world we leave our children will be unrecognisable from the one we grew up in. As the father of two small boys, that’s not something I’m prepared to accept…

Our leaders seem to be doing their best to do nothing. Call me a mad old unreconstructed radical, but I believe the only way forward is to build an international movement of ordinary people demanding real and fair action on climate change. Friends of the Earth will be at the forefront of that movement.

Real and fair action means those of us in the developed world cutting our carbon emissions by at least 40% by 2020.

Friends of the Earth has already achieved a huge amount on meagre resources, thanks largely to their brilliant Director, Oisin Coghlan. But to meet the challenges ahead and continue to be a radical progressive voice for change it needs to raise a whole lot more. So, I’d like you to do three things to help me celebrate turning 40:

1) Make a donation to Friends of the Earth. Click here.  You can do it now.  I’m going to suggest €40, but please give however much or little you can afford, whether that’s €4 or €400. To get things started I’ve made a small donation myself.

2) Raise your voice and take action to pressure our government to take constructive action on climate change, such as implementing a Climate Protection Law. If you sign up to Friends of the Earth they’ll tell you what needs to be done, and make it easy for you to do it. If you want to read more, go here 

3) Make a personal effort to reduce your carbon output this year, and every year. I won’t get all preachy about flights, cars, and eating less meat - you know what you need to do.

If on the off-chance you were planning to get me a big fancy birthday present , thank you, but don’t. Seriously, don’t. Give the money to Friends of the Earth instead. I have everything I need and I don’t want to encourage any more needless consumption. If you do go ahead and get me something I’ll sell it and give the money to Friends of the Earth myself. Which wouldn’t be very efficient now, would it?

You might be thinking I’m asking you to sponsor me to do nothing more onerous than turning 40 - no 10k run, no parachute jump, no mountain trek. You’re right. I could pretend that I’m going to do the Great Ireland Run or the St Patricks Day 5k. But you know it wouldn’t happen. I’d never get the time to train and it’d all go horribly wrong. So instead, I thought I’d just ask you nicely to make a modest contribution to an organisation that means an awful lot to me. I do hope you’ll help out.

Thanks ever so much.

Damian.

PS: It turns out myself and Sean Triner from Pareto Fundraising were born only days apart (crucially, he’s 6 days older than me) and we then both end up running fundraising agencies (although on opposite sides of the world). Stranger still, we both decide to use the occasion of our fortieth birthdays to raise money for causes we care about. While I’m fairly certain we came up with the plans independently, I’m going to claim that I just got in there first, and he nicked the idea from me. But that’s OK, because I regularly nick loads of ideas from Sean - and you should too, he’s a fundraising genius. Once you’ve made a donation to Friends of the Earth, you should also visit Sean’s page and make a gift to Marie Stopes.

The reason is simple - all the research conducted on the way people read direct mail letters shows that after reading their name in the address line, most people flip straight to the end of your letter.

And if there’s a PS there, they read it.

In other words, your PS is possibly the first thing your donors read after opening your direct mail. Plus, if your letter hooks the donor, and they read to the end, it will also be the last thing they read (or rather re-read) before they reach for their cheque book.

Consequently, the PS is probably the single most important line in any fundraising direct mail pack. And as such, it requires special attention. Ideally it should encapsulate the core proposition of your DM campaign, your ask, plus a little something extra to boost response.

So, having dealt with the why, here’s the how. Five dos and don’ts to inspire your copywriter to boost your PS potential:

1. Don’t ask for ‘ancillary information’ to be put in your PS

The job of your PS is to inform the donor exactly what you’d like them to do next, how much you’d like them to give, why you need their gift, and what it will do for your beneficiaries.

It’s not a place to mention your new TV ad, your latest press release or an upcoming public event. Or any other “stuff” that doesn’t seem to have a natural home in the body of your fundraising letter. There is of course, one exception. And that’s if you’d prefer your donors to know this ‘fact’ than to actually write you out a cheque.

2. Do put a one line description in your brief stating exactly why you need one specific donor to make this particular gift

Not a paragraph. Not a background statement. A short one liner, aimed at an individual donor, for example:

“Claire, I need your gift to…

… give an abandoned dog like Butch a new home”
… help us bring water to a village in Bangladesh”
… to keep our community outreach programme running”

And having done this, be prepared to rap your creative team firmly over the knuckles if you don’t see this line rephrased in the PS of your letter.

3. Don’t ignore the power of a deadline

As Samuel Johnson once remarked: “It focuses a man’s mind wonderfully if he knows he is to be hanged in the morning.” Urgent need is important to donors. And let’s face it, at any given point in time, every non-profit has an urgent need for donations. Letting this assumption slide in your PS is not good enough. Just saying the word ‘urgent’, won’t cut it.

You need to demonstrate the urgency. And nothing focuses the mind like a deadline. There will be times that you can do this explicitly, emergency appeals being the classic example. But even when you have no organisational deadlines to meet, it’s sometimes easier than you’d think to create a sense of implied urgency.

Here’s a very simple example of how you can gently introduce a deadline without being specific about consequences:

P.S. If you can rush us your gift of €75 by Wednesday the 19th of August - I’m certain Butch will find a new loving home before the month is out… could you do that?

On the other hand, if you can tie the deadline to specific consequences, like keeping a vital service going; giving a child a simple eye operation before it’s too late; lobbying government ahead of a crucial parliamentary vote, etc… so much the better.

4. Do put aside a “Bonus Proof” of benefit

Think for a minute of the kind of “Not only but also” promises made at the end of DRTV commercials for shopping channel type products. Well, the “Bonus Proof” is a fundraising manager’s less sensational equivalent of this proven direct response technique.

It could be in the form of a different ask, e.g.

P.S. Your €75 today could find Butch a new home… but for a regular gift of just €15 a month you could help many more of his furry friends to find loving homes too…

Or a different case study that demonstrates the efficacy of the gift for which you’re asking, e.g:

P.S. Butch reminds me of a lovely dog called Spike, who went to a wonderful home just four weeks ago. All it took was a €75 gift from a caring supporter like you. Could you be the one to find Butch his new home?

The idea is to give the donor something extra, something not already in the letter, a bonus demonstration of how the gift you’re asking for will directly help your beneficiaries.

5. Do provide a contact point for supporters

Even though they’re emotionally invested in what you do, your donors rarely, if ever, get to see the tangible benefits of what they make possible firsthand. But by giving them the name of a someone who does (plus a postal address/e-mail/or if possible a phone number), you can give your donors the next best thing.

A human contact point - even if they never use it - draws your donors closer to you, makes them feel more valued, adds to your credibility, and gives donors a way to ask questions, or simply to tell you how much they like you.

The PS is the perfect place for this ‘point of contact’, because it adds value, warmth and credibility at the two most important points during your donor’s interaction with your letter… when they first take it out of the envelope… and just before they reach for their cheque book and pen.

***

Needless to say, you’re not always going to be able to do all of these things - but three out of five should give you a much more powerful PS, and better response rates too. And all without affecting your budget - because it costs the same to write a brilliant PS as it does to write a bad one.

In 2010 Fundraising Ireland will be launching their official Membership Programme, in order to ensure that they can provide a professional and tailored range of services to those engaged in fundraising activity in Ireland. They want to deliver the best membership programme for you – one that takes account of what those professionally engaged in fundraising see as being essential to their roles and one that delivers what you need to succeed.

In developing the membership programme Fundraising Ireland want to ensure we take account of the views of all those engaged in fundraising activities and therefore would be very grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete this short questionnaire. All completed questionnaires will be entered into a prize draw and 3 lucky respondents will each win a ticket to the Fundraising Ireland annual conference, taking place on March 24th 2010 in Croke Park. Final date for the completion of the survey is Friday the 11th of December 2009. For further information please check out our website. Thank you to the many that have completed the survey to date.

But I have been able to pick up on some of the buzz… and some of the key tips and ideas by following the twitter feed from the event. I’ve set up a column on my tweetdeck to track all mentions of #29thIFC. You can also follow the live feed at Howard Lake’s UK Fundraising site, or you can simply search twitter for the IFC hashtag: #29thIFC.

There’s also a twitter billboard at the IFC, so that delegates and those not there can communicate and exchange ideas.

You can follow Ask folk on twitter:
Damian
John

Seriously.

Times are tough. Some of your donors will have lost their jobs, others will be getting by on a lower income than before. Most will be feeling uncertain and fearful about the future.

Show them that you understand where they’re at. Next time you write to them, let them know that if they feel they need to cancel, or reduce, their direct debit that’s OK. And make it easy for them with a nice big tick box to that effect on the donation form.

Of course, while you’re at it, explain that you do still need their support and that, if they can spare a few extra euro each month, it would help even more.

The Irish Hospice Foundation recently did exactly this.

(click on the image to enlarge)

Sure enough, some of their valuable, direct debit donors ticked the box to cancel.

Four of them, to be precise.

And I’m sure each of them had very good reasons for canceling - job losses, financial difficulties, or perhaps they had fallen out of love with the Irish Hospice Foundation. It happens.

But over 400 donors chose to increase their monthly gift, resulting in a very significant increase in the Foundation’s monthly direct debit income. And they got loads of positive feedback as well. Donors were impressed.

You see, if you treat donors as adults, if you try to have a grown-up relationship with them, and recognise that they’re the ones who have chosen to support you and that they can change their mind at any time and that you can’t force them, or trick them into giving you money… well, donors respect that. And they’ll respond accordingly.

You can make a donation to support the Irish Hospice Foundation’s work here

I emailed Sean Triner last week, but he was on his holidays, so I got his very entertaining out of office reply. After thanking his clients, providing alternative contact details for his colleagues, and plugging his blog he finished off with:

Still reading?  Well I guess you have time to spare - so if you haven’t already, take this time to order “Ogilvy on Advertising” - you can get it from www.amazon.com.

I know I shouldn’t admit it, but I haven’t read said book - even though it’s been on my list of books to read for ages. So, inspired by Sean, I dropped into my local bookshop and picked it up. I’m only one chapter in but I’m having to resist the temptation to underline large chunks of text and scrawl notes in the margin reminding me to tell so-and-so about this or that piece of wisdom.

Anyway, I thought I’d share, in no particular order, some of the words of wisdom that have already inspired me from the book (which you can buy here)

On big ideas:

It will help you recognize a big idea if you ask yourself five questions:
1. Did it make me gasp when I first saw it?
2. Do I wish I had thought of it myself?
3. Is it unique?
4. Does it fit the strategy to perfection?
5. Could it be used for 30 years?

(yes, he did say 30 years.)

For the next time you CEO says s/he’s tired of your longest running, best performing campaign:

If you are lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops selling. Scores of good advertisements have been discarded before they lost their potency.

To keep you focussed when you’re writing the brief for your next campaign:

Most campaigns are too complicated. They reflect a long list of objectives, and try to reconcile the divergent views of too many executives. By attempting to cover too many things, they achieve nothing.

On juvenile mistakes:

Advertising agencies waste their client’s money repeating the same mistakes. I recently counted 49 advertisements set in reverse (white type on black background) in one issue of a magazine, long years after research demonstrated that reverse is difficult to read.

On ’story-appeal’, and the importance of details

One of his [Harold Rudolph] observations was that photographs with an element of ’story appeal’ were far above average in attracting attention. This led me to put an eye-patch on the model in my advertisements for Hathaway shirts.

(more of this subject in Aline Reed’s terrific post here)

And finally (for now) on direct response:

For all their research, most advertisers never know for sure whether their advertisements sell. But direct-response advertisers… know to a dollar how much each advertisement sells. So watch the kind of advertising they do.

In their magazine advertisements, general advertisers use short copy, but the direct response people invariably use long copy. Who, do you suppose, is more likely to be right?

2. By saying thank you for their recent gift of €x in response to your last appeal.

3. By thanking them for their generous support for your organisation over the last x many years.

4. By telling them how crucial their support has been to the success of your cause.

5. By telling them that they truly are a generous and special person who is making a real difference in the world today.

6. By telling them how many people / families / children / dogs / cats their last gift helped.

7. By telling them that their support makes them one of the few people who really understand and appreciate the issues that you work on.

8. By telling them that everyone in your organisation really appreciates everything they’ve done to help.

9. By thanking them for their extraordinary support even in these difficult times.

10. By saying that, without their generous donations, your vital work simply wouldn’t be possible.

The combination of the very low and very high amounts really drives home the message that no gift is too small - or too large. Even fifty pence can help. And apparently one donor did give £200,000.

Like many non profits who have received a lot of statutory funding in the past, the current downturn hasn’t been kind to Women’s Aid. Cutbacks meant that income was down by 10% this year, putting vital services in jeopardy. We decided to get an emergency appeal out to donors, asking for a special gift to help cover the cost of their National Freephone Helpline. We employed the usual tactics - linking ask amounts to previous gifts, including a prompt for a higher value gifts, making it as warm and personal and urgent as possible. Here’s the donation form:

But given the dire need, we also included a note from the Director which re-stated that they were expecting a shortfall of €65,000 this year and expressing the hope that somewhere amongst their supporters there were individuals who could help cover this shortfall with gifts of €10,000.

Click here to enlarge

It went on:

If you think you could be one of these people, or if you know someone else who may be able to help us, please contact me on my direct line here at Women’s Aid, which is…

Our hope was that this would give a significant lift to the average gift and maybe, just maybe, turn up a €10k donor. Less than a week into the campaign the response has been fantastic, way ahead of expectations, and, to our delight, one supporter wrote a cheque for €10,000. A big thank you to them.

So, a successful solicitation of €10,000 using direct mail. Obviously the context of a crisis appeal is very relevant here, with a very clear, urgent and tangible need. But by using the extra note to seek out big gifts it turned what may have been a typical direct mail gift into a major donation.

You can make a donation to Women’s Aid here

You can read more about the campaign in our WORK section.

Back in 1989, Gian co-founded Graphiconies, which later became Public Communications Centre. Myself and Gian worked together in PCC from 1994 until 2001 and shared an office for much of that time. When I joined, Gian had the job of teaching me everything I needed to know about printing - now long forgotten curiosities such as output bureaux, film and cromalins.

Way back in the last century, Gian was an online evangelist, seeing the potential of the internet for nonprofits long before most charities even noticed it. The Community Exchange newsletter he established while at PCC endures still as a vital communication and networking resource for the sector.

Gian was an incredibly hard-working and committed man. He had a passion for the nonprofit world and the issues that drive us. And he was a beautiful basketball player, dazzling us mere mortals on the court in the YMCA on Thursday evenings.

The last time he emailed me, he told me he was back doing chemotherapy and that he had “to get used to the fact that the tumor might get in a ‘bad mood’ at some stage - hopefully not before 2050…. ;-)”

It was characteristic of his quiet sense of humour, and while the tumor may have got in a ‘bad mood’, throughout his illness Gian never seemed to. He fought it with the same determination, passion and commitment that he brought to his work.

Our deepest sympathies go out to his wife Paola and all his family.

(There’s a far more eloquent tribute to Gian on the PCC website.)

The world’s “first global virtual fundraising conference” is just about to start. Mari Tikkanen will kick things off with a session on Using social media to re-energize relations and mobilize support from government donors at 12.30 today.

Some of the other highlights include, Obama-man Scott Goodstein talking about digital advocacy, Mal Warwick on Fighting the Recession with Online Tools on Nick Allen on how to build an email list.

You can still register here.

You can follow the liveblog here.

And the twitter tag is #ifconline